


come find me, fairytale

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Children, F/F, Goddesses, Kidnapping (Sort of), Magic, Multi, Priestesses, Road Trips, Temple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22255420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: For a magical road trip that started off with Rose beingkidnappedfrom her temple, this sure is gearing up to be a hell of a love story.Then again, she's known Aradia in her dreams for so many years, she can't see it going any other way, and the Goddess they're going to seek—well, maybe she didn't stand a chance from the start.
Relationships: Jade Harley/Rose Lalonde/Aradia Megido, Rose Lalonde/Aradia Megido
Kudos: 15
Collections: Polyswap Winter Promptfest - Dusk Edition





	come find me, fairytale

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Caracalliope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caracalliope/pseuds/Caracalliope) in the [Polyswap_Winter_Promptfest_Dusk_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Polyswap_Winter_Promptfest_Dusk_2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Godstuck, please. A goddess and two worshipers, two goddesses and one worshiper, a goddess and a high priestess and a heretic... any configuration would be amazing.

"...and so, the two came together, caught betwixt time and tide, torn from light and darkness alight, to find that which was lost and make whole that which was torn asunder, fulfilling the prophecy foretold and summoning the Goddess of All That Bloomed once more to their side." You smile overtop of your book, at all of the younglings gathered before you, and continue to very subtly ignore the presence looming at your side. Aradia Megido can go ride a donkey off a gods damned cliff for all you care.

"And then what happened?" One of the more precocious children has crept up close to your side, bright eyes widened by her curiosity.

You give her a fond smile, and it's not just because you're hoping to get a few more coppers in the bowl you'd laid out. "In the story, do you mean?"

"No," the girl says, with all the patience that children of that age have with idiot grownups who never seem to understand. You love children. They're as contrary as goats, and twice as fun. "With _them_."

"The...the Goddess, the Maiden, and the Witchlady?"

"Yes!"

This is something you hadn't expected, and, despite your better instincts, you turn a panicked look up towards Aradia. "Well—"

"They fell in love," Aradia says, crouching down to the child's height. You ignore the way your heart seizes up with fondness, at the softness in Aradia's eyes, at the delight in the child's. This is _not_ what you're here for. "And all three of them lived happily ever after."

"Oh, _wow_ ," says the little girl, and her eyes are shining bright. She leads the crowd in breathless applause, and by the time everyone's dispersed, your bowl is looking a lot fuller than it had been.

Aradia continues to hover, as you pour the money into your carrying pouch and carefully repack the book you'd been reading from. You've learned that if there's something on her mind that she wants to say, there's not a force on the planet to stop her from saying it. So long as you have the patience to out wait her, it's almost always an easy win.

You give it a minute.

Then five more.

Then: " _What_."

"Do you think it's all true?" There might be a faint sound of _smug_ in her voice, but you'll skip commenting on that in favour of getting your necessary work done while you have the daylight to do it. "The story. The prophecy. Everything you just read."

"Does it actually matter if I do?" You run a hand over your horse's side, checking to see if he'll hold up for the rest of today's ride. "You certainly seem to. Isn't that why we're on this ridiculous field trip in the first place?"

You absolutely do not notice the way Aradia's eyes sparkle when she's excited about something. "You've stopped calling it a kidnap road trip!"

"And you've lost your mind," you retort, mounting up as gracefully as a high priestess may. "The heretical stories are always a crowd pleaser. I didn't pick that one for any special reason."

But not even that last barb can dim her excitement, and you resign yourself to at least an hour of constant chatter (and try not to think about how that means at least an hour of hearing nothing but her beautiful voice).

* * *

The truth was, you turned the girl down when she appeared (real, she was real, she wasn't some figment of your imagination, some fractured mirror of your dreams) because you didn't think she'd try again. You had been certain that turning her aside, no matter how hard it was for you, would spell the end of this brief flicker of foolishness, would be enough to keep her from intruding any further on your life.

(you did not let yourself think about the road you had followed with her in your dreams, about the Goddess calling you from the far end of your path, of the many conversations the two of you had. you did not. you, a high priestess, could not let your own dreams and desires interfere with the course laid out before you.)

You had _not_ known that she would take this as an opportunity to kidnap you from your temple and haul your ass out on a "magical" journey anyway.

* * *

"Did you—" You cut Aradia off before she can continue on, a fingertip on her lips as you're shaking her head. There are sounds all around you, noises in the night, and you do not trust the spell barrier you had laid to hold up to speaking. Aradia pulls back the slightest bit, and in the moonlight, you watch her lips shape a word that looks like _bandits_.

Your answer is a nod, and a tip of your head towards the faint shimmer of the barrier you'd laid. She answers with a nod of her own, shifting closer to the whip you'd never seen her use, her eyes on the source of the noises, and—

A troop of raccoons comes tumbling out of the bush, at least three or four of them caught up in a fight. The two of you hang in frozen silence for a split second, taking in the scene.

Then you burst into simultaneous laughter that has the raccoons falling all over themselves to sprint off into the undergrowth.

"Those sure were bandits, all right," you tell Aradia through your laughter, wiping away tears. "Furry little bandits! With their, hands!"

"Oh, shut _up_ ," she says, still grinning. "You were on edge too! I saw that glow thing you did with your hands."

"Shhh," you say, feeling very high and mighty. _You_ hadn't had to go creeping for a weapon to feel ready. "Go back to sleep. Like I told you _last week_ , my barriers mean that no one can see us, sense us, or hear us, as long as we're quiet enough and don't show off too much magic or emotion."

"Oh, so we're basically screwed whenever you're in a grumpy mood then, huh?"

You throw a boot at her and go right back to sleep.

* * *

A scant month after your promotion to High Priestess, you'd dreamed of a woman with flowers in her hair, beckoning you onwards, and when you looked left, no one was there—and then someone tugged on your right hand, and you'd turned to see a girl who had wandered through your dreams so many times before, and you'd smiled, _smiled_ , your mouth wrapping around a word (her name), _Aradia_ —

* * *

You run out of leads half a year into your journey, staring out over the edge of a cliff at the open, uninterrupted, ocean.

The ocean that should have been interrupted by a fucking _island_ , an island you'd been dreaming of, in one form or another, for years. It should have been there. You had been so fucking _certain_ it would be there.

Aradia loops an arm around your waist, and, as you have for the past two months, you let her. You let her hold you as the two of you stare out to sea, both of you willing something that doesn't (shouldn't) exist to exist the way it should (couldn't ever, couldn't be real). Then, unlike the past two months, you turn towards her, turn into her hold, and bury your face against the shoulder and _cry_.

"I thought," you try to say, after you've run out of most of your tears, and she holds you tighter, saying nothing else at all.

* * *

_Come find me_ , the woman says, one night, after the three of you have spent months exploring her home, the culmination of years walking towards her with Aradia in your dreams. _Come find me_ , she says, and Aradia shows up at your temple the very next day.

* * *

You dream, for the first time since you started the quest, and you see Aradia in your dream, dreaming right alongside you. There is no doubt while you sleep, a smile broad on your face as the two of you walk the secret path down the cliff that no one else could ever know, as you find the sea cave, as you climb into the enchanted boat, right beside your lady love, on the way to find the woman of your shared dreams.

There is no fear while you sleep, and the boat sails out across the clear-seeming ocean, through the mist and fog that rise up around you, and—

* * *

You open your eyes, from this latest dream, this cruel trick of your imagination, and a wave of sea water slaps you right in the face. Aradia is there, doused as swiftly as you are, and then there _she_ is, the Goddess who had filled your dreams and guided your steps, falling on her perfect bottom in her haste to haul your boat up the sandy shore, and the two of you are leaping out of the little craft to sweep her up in your arms, to kiss her, to come home _at long last_ —

* * *

"...and so," you say, tucking the blanket in around your beloved daughter, "the two came together, caught betwixt time and tide, torn from light and darkness alight, to find that which was lost and make whole that which was torn asunder, fulfilling the prophecy foretold and summoning the Goddess of All That Bloomed once more to their side."

"And they fell in love," Aradia says, leaning down to drop a kiss onto your little girl's curls.

" _And_?" Her expression is impatient, looking up at the two of you, well aware of what's missing. She takes after Jade, you think, and you dream of more.

Jade, running as late as ever, appears between you in a burst of frost and flowers and life. "And we all lived happily ever after! The end."

"Noooo," your daughter says, kicking her legs. "You have to keep going!"

"Or you have to go to bed," you counter, giving Aradia a _look_. This is absolutely her coming out in the child, and you're going to cut her off before she can say it's you. She just grins at you, tugging Jade down front and centre.

"How about Mama takes over and tells you that one?"

"I'd _love_ to," Jade says, and she absolutely means it, the good heart and boundless energy that had once drawn the two of you into a quest across lands to find her (rescue her, she says, and she means it) ever present. "So they all fell in love, on that little island in the middle of the sea...but that's not the end of their story."

You're glad it wasn't, and even gladder to know all the rest.


End file.
